Egyptian Journalists Stage Sit-in to Protest against their Paper’s Management

Published March 22nd, 2001 - 02:00 GMT

Six journalists working for Egypt’s Al Aalam Al Yawm started Wednesday an open sit-in at the Press Association offices in Cairo in protest against wha

By Mohammad Ba'li

Albawaba.com - Cairo

Six journalists working for Egypt’s Al Aalam Al Yawm started Wednesday an open sit-in at the Press Association offices in Cairo in protest against what they called “arbitrary measures" taken against them by the paper’s administration for the past three months.

The journalists had been suspended after they backed colleagues from the computer department who went on strike when the administration cut a bonus customarily distributed on the occasion of Eid el Fitr.

The journalists claim that the company has used armed guards who forcibly barred them from entering their place of work pending an investigation.

They said that the internal investigation was assigned to a retired police Lt. General, who threatened to refer their case to the State Security Intelligence. He even filed a complaint against them at police station accusing them of inciting the newspaper employees to go on strike, according to the journalists.

Furthermore, the protestors announced that if the administration does not respond to their demands, they will start a hunger strike. They demand that the company pay them their frozen salaries and end their suspension.

Efforts to settle the issue by the association’s head of the freedoms committee, Magdi Hussein and legal consultant, Sayyed Abu Zeid, have failed.

The freedoms committee is due to hold on Thursday a press conference on the issue, and another relating to the Asha’b newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Islamist Labor Party. Hussein is the editor-in-chief of the banned paper, which was suspended last year.

Hussein has told Albawaba.com that the authorities refuse to respond to a series of court rulings ordering the reopening of Asha’b – Albawaba.com